Learning to Draw (Upside Down)

Today, we return to Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Before I delve into the latest lesson, I'd like to take a moment to express how much I'm enjoying this process. My fiancée and I are reading through this book and completing the exercises together and it's a lot of fun. I've been making a concerted effort to do more things with her in the time we have together. We're both independent people who can spend days in solitude. But reading this book and trying to improve our drawing skills together has been great. Recommended for other couples out there.

Since my last post, I've read through a few more chapters and completed three more exercises. At times I wonder if some of her theories hold up but regardless, the lessons and techniques she's teaching do seem to work. The first exercise was to replicate the Vase/Faces image.


After completion, and for a day or so, I was disappointed with this drawing. I didn't find it symmetrical enough. Also, after re-reading the instructions, I feel I may have skipped over some of the exercise. But after returning to it a few days later, I find myself quite proud of the result. Sure, there's some symmetry issues but I find it close.

The next exercise asks the reader to replicate a drawing by Picasso of Igor Stravinsky. Now I find Picasso difficult to decipher as is, but Edwards instructs the student to draw the image upside down. Fortunately, she has printed the image in the text upside down.


I still don't have proportions right but I'm again pretty proud with how this one turned out. I didn't quite complete the exercise due to time (and material) constraints. It became quite clear to me that I wouldn't have enough width or height to finish the left side or the head. And man, those hands are gnarly but they turned out far better than I expected.


The last exercise is again an upside down drawing. This time I used one of my new comic books as a reference. I've always been a big Ironman fan and last year I even made a cosplay Superior Ironman. Unfortunately, I struggled with the design and the costume deteriorated quickly after the con. Next year, I'm hoping to do the armor above and decided I should get my practice in now. I struggled with the proportions again and ended up rushing the drawing. The right leg is a bit out there and the extended arms are squished. But again, I'm happy with the result. I wish I could turn everything upside down for drawing.

Another thing I learned while drawing the Ironman armor. I hate hard pencils. We finally used our drawing paper instead of printer paper and broke out our nicer pencils instead of the shark #2s. My fiancée gave me the 4H to start and I just struggled with it. It didn't feel right and the lines that were appearing didn't look right. Since I scrapped the original attempt after messing up the left leg, I switched to the 4B pencil. What a difference. It felt far closer to the #2s we'd been using and the lines looked exactly the way I wanted them to.

Hopefully the next lessons will involve drawing things right side up and help me get the proportions a little bit closer.